I thought I was done with my art project but it turns out the project wasn't done with me.

As I mentioned many times before I started a personal art project Ink Flower Garden in January 2014. with an intention of creating 1000 ink drawings and paintings, finding my own style as an artist and just learning about myself as a person in general. The project turned out to be a very intense journey that officially ended in December 2017. It was a very rewarding experience but nevertheless super intense one and that's probably why I can recall the exact moment I scanned the last 1000th image and saved it. It was December 13th, mid-afternoon and as I was saving the image I loudly declared "It is over, I am done."

Except it wasn't over and I wasn't done. I still felt inspired to keep on drawing and painting in same vein and kept on adding new images to my portfolio site, slowly finishing up several ongoing series I've been working on for years. This Spring, when I made a final image for Enter the Underworld series I was filled with so much relief and joy that it felt like the project must have been finished, like, this time for real. But, it wasn't.

There is (at least) one more series that needs to be worked on, At the Edge of a Galaxy. I started (officially) working on it in June 2016. and as the series begun to take shape I believed it was about planets and outer space being a metaphor for my relationships with men. You see, I use my paintings sort of like Rorschach inkblots, I allow myself to paint whatever I want, intuitively and then after a while come back to images wondering what do they mean. It's a bit like self-proscribed art therapy, I guess. But, yes, I thought I had At the Edge of a Galaxy series all figured out when, honestly I forced finished it last Autumn by "importing" a bunch of images from another series and calling it done. Why did I do that? Well, I wanted it to be done, I felt that my "edgy, galactic" series was getting kind of dark and I didn't really want to explore it further, I didn't want to feel uncomfortable or face emotional pain. But, the fear of emotional pain is much worse than experiencing acute emotional pain itself. As soon as you face emotional pain and realize what is causing it, it subsides and dissolves. So, few days ago I cleared out the galactic series by deporting some images back where they belong (Deep Sea/Deep Space series) and now I'm ready to see what's hiding in deep, dark depths of my psyche and paint it out to wrap up At the Edge of a Galaxy series as well as the entire project.

Before I even started the Ink Flower Garden project years ago I knew that I wanted it to function as a whole so I can either make it into an art book or something else that would suit the project and that's why it's important to me to have all the series be properly finished, to feel finished. They don't feel finished yet, but very, very soon they might. Let's hope so :)

On my work desk I keep a small jar of honey somebody gave me as a birthday present last year. I find it very aesthetically pleasing and inspiring to look at especially during the afternoon hours as the sunlight fills out the room. I look at my little jar of honey, a pot of liquid gold illuminated by sunshine, sparkling and think of all the ways I wish I could capture the essence of this gorgeous yellow in my paintings. I let my imagination take the lead and think of various, random things this pretty rich yellow color reminds of: thick, sticky amber syrup, warmth of a hot August evening, golden hour etc... The process usually puts me into a really good mood and also inspires me to create something.

I've been also very much inspired by beautiful flowers, their colors and shapes and fragrance in lately (hey, it's spring after all!). Last week I got a bouquet of pretty pink roses (my all time favorites) and I just couldn't stop looking at them, enjoying their perfect, delicate coral shade, their soft petals as if I wanted to soak in all of their beauty so I can somehow transfer it to my art. I must have starred at the flowers for a very long time since at one point I caught myself writing down these words into one of my notebooks: "Does a rose flower know it's being watched and does it care about being seen? How would it describe itself, if it could name itself what would that name be?"

I don't know answer to those questions but I do know inspiration can be found in simple, mundane objects and lovely flowers and in last few weeks I keep on noticing more and more everyday things and sights and sounds and scents that make me inspired and energized and eager to create.

Spring equinox, ink on 24x32cm paper.

I really wanted to make something for vernal equinox this year to greet the spring after seemingly never ending stream of grey, chilly days and I ended up making this bright yellow image. It was partly inspired by music I was listening at the time and partly by craving sunlight. As the time went by I realized this painting would be perfect final image in Enter the Underworld series. I really thought I was done with that series and didn't want to return to it since working on it (especially finishing it) was quite challenging. The series starts with an image of an eclipsed sun (done for spring equinox in 2015.) so maybe ending it with an image of bright sun (also done for spring equinox) is the right way to end it. After exactly 3 years in making filled with a lot of emotions, illness, stress but also joy and ectasy it deserves to be finally finished :)

After I made Spring equinox image I just wanted to keep on painting sun: small sun, happy sun, sweet sun, lemon-yellow round ball sun, vibrant orb sun, joyful sun radiating tiny colorful particles, whatever sun, sun-shine, sun-light...and I started with a simple and fun illustration of a sunrise.

Sunrise, ink on 24x32cm paper.

After that I wanted to paint an even bigger sun and pulled out the biggest paper I had at my place at the time (50x70cm) and quickly made this simple image of sun. I didn't do much work on it, after the ink dried I filled the yellow center with hand-draw circles and that was it. I hung the paper on the wall planning to finish it when I feel like it but few weeks have passed since then and my sun image still hangs there intact and I quite like it that way.

When it comes to art I'm a bit of a maximalist, I'm inclined to keep on adding more and more, more layers of ink, more patterns and details to my images until I'm sure I have exhausted every idea and until all of my energy is exhausted by working on the picture. Sometimes my approach works great and sometimes I simply suffocate the paper with too much detail. Generally it's hard for me to stop working on my art :) But this sun, there is something different about it, I love looking at it, I enjoy the fact that it isn't finished, it just isn't done, it's still in the early stage of becoming, it's simple and fresh and feels light and open and full of possibility and just makes me happy hanging there on the wall looking at me :) I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it, it feels so amazing just to let it be as it is.

Sun (wip), ink on 50x70cm paper.

Another painting exercise, acrylics and ink on 50x50cm canvas.

Speaking of unfinished art I managed to finish the painting above in one frenzied afternoon. I wanted to do something with bunch of old acrylics I had stacked in the back of my closet (since I almost exclusively use ink these days I have had a box of decade old acrylic paints that has been just taking up space). I even decided to record the process and it all started like great fun but in one moment and, I can't tell why, it turned into torture. I wasn't happy how the painting was turning out but couldn't just let it go and stop working on it, my camera would stop working recording only 30 seconds at the time and 2 light bulbs exploded. Oh, well. Eventually I did set the mess of a painting aside and forgotten I even recorded most of the "making of" process. Few weeks went by and I decided to take photos of the messy painting because, why not, not everything turns out great and making bad art is still ok. I even uploaded the video on my youtube, it's just practice anyway.

Doodles, ink on 18x24cm paper.

I found a new pleasure in simplicity, in letting things be simple and easy so I've been just doodling a lot, being playful with colorful shapes and lines not forcing myself to add too many details and not exhausting all of my energy drawing. It's been fun.

Actually, everything I've been doing in lately has been fun, so much fun. I don't know why but I've been feeling ridiculously happy for no special reason whatsoever and been enjoying all of my activities. last week I was at my mom's place alone and just felt do happy and awesome I wanted to capture the moment so I started taking selfies jsut for the fun of it.

I've also been enjoying taking long walks and looking at all of the beautiful blossoms and of course soaking in all the warm sunshine I can. It's been a wonderful moth so far and I have a feeling it will only get bettr and better!

Without any additional explanations, I'd just like to share some of the art I've made this month, some paintings, some doodles, some pages from my sketchbook, some ideas and thoughts... a bit of everything :)

On the left: a page from my sketchbook, on the right: Teenage fan club, ink on 20x25cm paper.

In April I've started working on a big ink painting and after I've completed a first layer I set it aside to be finished when I feel inspired to work on it again... which actually never happened. Every time I've attempted to finish this big painting something put me off, almost as if the painting had a mind of its own and didn't want to be messed with anymore :) So, finally after almost three months of trying to work on it I gave up and decided to just let it go. Since I've recorded the process of starting to work on it I edited it into a video you can see above and posted it on my youtube, because why not? The unfinished painting turned out to be just another painting exercise and you can see it leaning against the wall on pictures below in all it's unfinished glory.

The house of indefinable pleasures, ink on 35.5x51cm paper.

Recently I've also made a new painting for The house of indefinable pleasures series (and that's the name of this particular artwork as well). Unlike the bigger painting above this one didn't resist me and I managed to complete it in just few days while filming the pracess as well.

When I wrote my last post, almost a a month ago I was feeling a bit (or a lot) burnt out and needed a break from everything. Three weeks later, after taking some necessary rest I'm feeling much better. I'm still going through some sort of "information detox" trying to focus on creating rather than reading and researching and just plain absorbing as much information I can. I continued to paint and got back into my "comfort zone", using a lot of blue and purple:

Intimation, ink on 35.5x51cm paper.

Telepathy, ink on 35.5x51cm paper.

Also I started to work on an experimental animation video. At first I thought I'd just compose a video using scans of paintings I already have (to get something similar to the little animation test below) but then I decided to start something new and see how things go.

So far I made hundred small blue/purple ink paintings, I'm about to scan them and try to set them in motion, I'm hoping it should be a good starting point and a warm up of sorts for doing something more complex. My goal is to make something watchable by the end of the Summer or at least by the end of the year, it should be a fun and messy, experimental journey :)

I had a day off so I used my free time to paint (what else?!), I utilized the last blank canvas I had to make a colorful painting called Let it be, because all you can do sometimes is just let yourself be and accept life as it is (and paint of course :)).

Last week I spent every minute of my free time working on a new big painting. What differs this painting form others is a fact that an idea and title for it (Cosmic love) came to me in a dream. Since I'm a kind of a person that follows her dreams I knew I had to paint it. You can see a process of making this painting in the video above!

This is also last painting in a mini series of bigger paintings I've been working on lately (first two paintings are Mr Fantasizer and Desire) so I was very happy to have finished it. It was definitely a breakthrough piece for me (as well as previous two big paintings) and I will probably write about it more soon. For now here is just a photo of work itself (it's 70x100cm in size and done with ink and gelly rolls on paper, as usual).

Cosmic love, ink and gelly rolls on 70x100cm paper.

Three big paintings finished: from left to right: Desire, Mr Fantasizer, Cosmic love

Earlier this week I did a nice and simple painting exercise. I put up a roll of plain wall paper on my wall and allowed myself to have fun, be expressive and spontaneous. I used ink, acrylics and even markers in this exercise and you can watch it in a video posted above.

After 2 weeks of pure stress and a creative block I have finally found time and energy to paint again! I started this big purple painting named Desire on Tuesday and finished it this weekend. It was so much fun working on it and I enjoyed every second. Now I'm feeling re-energized and rejuvenated and with passion in my heart and willing hands I'm ready to keep making more art :)

The painting is as usually done with ink and gelly rolls on 70x100cm paper and you can see how it was made in this video below.

Yesterday afternoon I've attempted a fun and simple painting exercise. I've put up a long piece of paper onto (a protected) wall, dipped my biggest brush into ink and allowed myself to make long, wavy lines. I've been working so long on small sized paper I've gotten scared of getting locked into that particular way of painting. So, the purpose of this exercise was to liberate myself and to let my hand flow freely across the paper. I wasn't concerned with the outcome, I just wanted to enjoy the process you can see it all in the video below.

Finally I've managed to finish a big painting started few weeks ago. You can see how it was made in a video below. As you could've guessed from the title (and from my previous post) painting is called Mr Fantasizer.

If you woke up this morning with a strange desire to watch someone (and that someone being me) painting small white dots and rambling on about art, rejoice because today is your lucky day! I made a vlog in which I do just that-paint tiny dots and talk about art in almost coherent way! Yay! And all you have to do to experience that is click that seductive play button. (Go ahead, you know you want to :))

Oh, and btw the painting I'm working on is called Mr Fantasizer, it's pretty big (for my humble, small format loving standards): 70x100cm and I've been working on it for last week or so and it might take me forever to finish (or maybe just another week or so).

When I manage to finish it, I will put together an actual work-in-progress, speed-painting, let-me-show-you-how-I-made-this video but for now here is just yours truly doting and chatting.

I am continuing to work on my latest series of paintings inspired by outer space ( you can see more At the Edge of a Galaxy) and this time I made some colorful satellites. You can see how I made them in short video above.

Here is a short video of working on a new painting called Stream of consciousness. My main goal for this piece was to add layers of hand written text and seamlessly blend them with patterns I usually draw. I'm happy with the final result and I'm looking forward to incorporating more text to my art.

Today I'd like to share something I do when I feel like panting from my heart, when I feel like expressing love and compassion and sweetness and sharing it through my paintings. It's a very simple and enjoyable exercise of connecting to my heart and feeling of unconditional, free flowing love and then painting that feeling.

Before I start to paint I take a moment to connect to my heart: I sit down in silence, I close my eyes and take a few deep breathes. I shift my focus from my mind, from my head down to my chest, to my heart area and I allow myself to feel it. Sometimes I also put both of the palms of my hands on my chest since I noticed it helps to connect to my heart and how I'm feeling at the moment. I keep on breathing and very soon after that I start feeling soft, warm sensation around my heart area. Then I ask my heart to show me how its love feels like and how it looks like (I say: Dear heart please show me how your love feels like right now.) Then I allow my heart to open up and I observe whatever comes up.

How does love feel like right now? Is it soft and pink and sweet like cotton candy or is it like a festival of colorful, joyful fireworks? Is it delicious and juicy like golden nectar overflowing from an open vessel? Does it feel more mature and serious like, does it feel like sitting in the shade of an old oak tree feeling protected and safe? Or maybe it feels like million bright red roses blossoming at once?

Whatever feels the best, the most accurate I accept it, then stay in that energy for another moment, after that i open my eyes and begin to paint. For example if I experienced love as soft and pink then I begin to paint with pink and white ink and see what happens next, again using my intuition to guide me while painting. Whatever other colors or shapes or patterns I feel like creating I just go ahead and create them trusting in the process and trusting that this imagery I'm creating is the most genuine and honest expression of love at that moment.

This exercise, this way of painting also feels really, really good because all the while I'm painting I feel connected to this energy of unconditional love flowing from my heart through my body and expressing itself on paper and of course it also makes a very rewarding, energizing and very fulfilling experience. If you decide to give it a go I wish you wonderful painting (and if you don't I still wish you a wonderful, fulfilling painting experience :))!

If you follow my work you might know that from January 2014. I've been working on a personal art project called Ink Flower Garden with a goal of making 1000 abstract (or semi-abstract) ink paintings and drawings. In late May this year I've finally reached half of my goal by finishing 500 paintings! I've wanted to do something special and fun to mark that moment but I was simply to busy. So, now almost 2 months later I've put together a slideshow of photos taken from beginning of 2014. until May 2016. I've been taking as a documentation of my work in progress and also talked a bit about my experiences with this art project and you can see it in a video above. Below you can see a 500th painting I made, quite unimaginatively titled 500 :)

Also, you can follow the progress of the project on my tumblr which I update several times a week :)

Today I'd like to share my approach to painting with you which can be described as intuitive painting. When I make art I strive to get in touch with my emotions and then to express those emotions through creative process of painting freely and without any restrictions.I almost never plan my art ahead but usually just before I start a new piece I take a moment to get in touch with myself and to pose some questions. I literally ask myself what do you need to express today? or how are are you feeling right now, are you sad, angry or are you happy are you joyful or perhaps indifferent or bored? Usually, intuitively I do get some kind of answer like oh I'm feeling a bit melancholic or maybe I'm slightly nervous or perhaps I'm feeling excited about something. Whatever it is I accept it and then I move on to the next step which is going a little bit deeper inward. If, for example the answer was oh I'm slightly nervous and edgy, then I continue to ask myself: ok how does this nervousness feel like? and I try to describe it in as much detail as possible. I will go on by asking something like, does this nervousness feel like being bitten by a swarm of pesky mosquitoes, or does it feel like being stuck in a traffic jam on a hot summer's day in a car without air conditioning? or maybe it feels like wanting to scratch my own skin or not being able to sit still longer than 30 sec? I do that to get the most accurate description of how I'm feeling in order to fully connect to the mood or emotion so that I can eventually release it through painting, so I can paint it out. So after I answer those questions and intuitively get answers that feel accurate and right and after I have fully embraced my mood or feeling then I go further and ask specifically what is the color of this feeling, for example is this nervousness muted, sickly yellow of being sick to my stomach or is it bright electric blue of being super-high strung? If the answer is blue then I dip my brush into blue ink and start to paint. Sometimes I ask what is the texture of this feeling? Is it smooth or is it rough? Or can this emotion be represented by a pattern? What is this pattern, is it thousands of tiny bubbles about to burst or is it a forest of tall triangles that feel like sharp knifes? Whatever answer comes to mind first, I accept it and proceed to paint. So, if the feeling can be depicted by thousand tiny bubbles I will go on and paint them. I don't overthink the answers I just go ahead and paint them.This practice is also very therapeutic because it helps me to get in touch with my emotions, to process them and eventually release them though painting. I found this to be very healthy and effective way of dealing with stress but also it helps in dealing with some more serious issues like some deep emotional pain or irrational fears or anxiety. This approach to painting also has helped me greatly in getting to know myself better and it helped me in process of recovery after I have experienced some traumatic events in my life. Since this kind of painting is an intuitive and not so much a mental process and I am very intuitive, emotional person I find it very energizing and rewarding and almost effortless. It helped me a lot and I hope that if you choose to give this approach a go, it would help you as well or that you would at least have fun with it :)

Happy Wednesday everyone! Also, happy July! New month is here and with beginning of it I made a new painting. Seems I'm still in some sort of outer space period so this one is also inspired by cosmic events as few of my previous paintings are. This one is called Coming together, falling apartand I was inspired to do it after I read something about Giant-impact hypothesis. According to it Moon was formed out of debris left over from a collision of Earth and another planet cca 4.5 billion years ago. When I read that I thought how cool it would be to paint two planets colliding not because I wanted to illustrate that event but because planets seem like a good metaphor for lets say people or minds and this painting could also represent a collision or an intense confrontation between two persons or two minds. So, before I started working on the painting first I made some sketches that you can see below and as usual you can see the whole making of process in video above.